Changing Face of Print Media Prompts New Era, Name Change at RIT

ROCHESTER, NY—August 2, 2012—As the advancement of technology steers the media landscape, is shifting its resources to stay ahead of the curve. The School of Print Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is transforming and will now be called the School of Media Sciences. The shift comes as the school historically has kept up with advancing technology, economic shifts and cultural changes.

“This new, strategic shift will leverage our respected and historic foundation in print media to incorporate a ‘print-plus’ approach, that includes insights and understanding in the areas of the Web, mobile and social media, complementing the precision and technical understanding of the printing industry,” says Chris Bondy, administrative chair of RIT’s School of Media Sciences. “Students will emerge from the School of Media Sciences as media architects acquiring skills to lead cross-media communications environments, both from a technical and operational perspective.”

Along with the name change, RIT is adapting and refining programs to provide emerging professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to become successful leaders at highly recognized companies in various industries. Many RIT alumni hold leadership positions in some of the top graphic communications, imaging sciences and printing and publishing companies worldwide and the shift towards digital is being implemented to continue that success.

The School of Media Sciences has an ongoing connection to its community, professional affiliates and over 5,000 alumni. With this comes a great deal of pride and responsibility to provide the most advanced breadth and depth of information to the leaders in the industry, its community and to its students.

“The expansive use and sharing of information and content through the digital world has created a shift in the communication and technology industries,” says Bondy. “Students must understand how content and data originates, and how to apply effective content management skills to reach audiences that range from one person to millions— through a single venue or through multiple venues.”

Sad Story, especially for us, the former faculty, who made the RIT printing program the number 1 in the World.
All those inspiring, hands-on experience labs are gone. So is most of the sophisticated equipment. To my knowledge, there is not a single faculty member left with actual industry experiences to share. I get so many nice compliments via Linkedin in this regards.
Media Sciences has very little to do with our printing endeavors. Our daughter, with an RIT master degree in computer graphics would qualify for that title. She used to be a creative director for NBC Universal, now is a free-lance artist with too many assignments. Got a golden globe award for her works. The other daughter, who went through RIT’s Printing program is teaching pre-press technologies at the U. of Stuttgart were yes, they still teach
printing related technologies. I’m sure, most of the alumnus of the once so successful RIT printing program will be disappointed as well and withhold any future donations toward a program that does no longer carry the name printing.

Henry Freedman

End of an era. The School of Printing at RIT was one of the few programs that RIT could
claim they were number one in the world. Just like the fall of Kodak and Xerox RIT’s printing
program has fallen to very poor management over the last decades. The program has been run
by consultants using the program as a marketing platform not run by career professional
college educators who could have successfully represented the program to RIT university management.
Now it has become amorphic.